Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- 153 Paternalism
- 154 Peoples
- 155 Perfectionism
- 156 Plan of life
- 157 Pogge, Thomas
- 158 Political conception of justice
- 159 Political liberalism, justice as fairness as
- 160 Political liberalisms, family of
- 161 Political obligation
- 162 Political virtues
- 163 Practical reason
- 164 Precepts of justice
- 165 Primary goods, social
- 166 The priority of the right over the good
- 167 Procedural justice
- 168 Promising
- 169 Property-owning democracy
- 170 Public choice theory
- 171 Public political culture
- 172 Public reason
- 173 Publicity
- R
- S
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
156 - Plan of life
from P
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- 153 Paternalism
- 154 Peoples
- 155 Perfectionism
- 156 Plan of life
- 157 Pogge, Thomas
- 158 Political conception of justice
- 159 Political liberalism, justice as fairness as
- 160 Political liberalisms, family of
- 161 Political obligation
- 162 Political virtues
- 163 Practical reason
- 164 Precepts of justice
- 165 Primary goods, social
- 166 The priority of the right over the good
- 167 Procedural justice
- 168 Promising
- 169 Property-owning democracy
- 170 Public choice theory
- 171 Public political culture
- 172 Public reason
- 173 Publicity
- R
- S
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
A plan of life is a person’s long-term scheme of conduct and activities designed to permit, given reasonably favorable circumstances, the harmonious satisfaction of his interests, desires, and final ends. A rational plan of life encourages and secures the fulfillment of a person’s more permanent and general aims, influences the formation of subsequent interests and desires, allows the exercise of his abilities, and “allows him to flourish, so far as circumstances permit” (TJ 376).Happiness consists in the successful execution of a rational plan of life.
Rawls’s account of the rationality of plans of life articulates an ideal model that is central to both the justification of primary goods and the conception of stability in TJ. The account belongs to his conception of goodness as rationality. This ideal model is absent in later writings because it is neither compatible with, nor necessary for, a political conception of justice. Beginning in “Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good” he claims that goodness as rationality supposes that citizens have a rational plan of life “at least in an intuitive way,” but there is no characterization of plans and their rationality (CP 451).
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon , pp. 606 - 607Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014